Wake Up Punjab & remember the SYL

The plot to steal Punjab’s river water unfolds

Bhakra Mainline canal to be closed for 15 days W.E.F. 10 October, 07, to facilitate its illegal connection to the new Hansi-Bhutana canal now complete in Haryana even before any Supreme Court verdict

Former chief Engineer Irrigation Punjab G. S. Dhillon spells out the dangers to Punjab & the Bhakra Mainline canal from Haryana’s new illegal Hansi Bhutana canal



Washington, D.C., Wednesday, September 19, 2007 - The illegal 109-Kilometer Hansi Bhutana canal in Haryana (according to an Op-Ed in the Tribune newspaper of 16 September, 2007, written by former chief Engineer Irrigation Punjab Sirdar G. S. Dhillon) is just 15 feet away from the Bhakra Mainline canal waterline in Haryana. Dhillon quotes the contractor in Haryana  as saying that making a connection, near RD340, (>   http://www.tribuneindia.com/2007/20070916/edit.htm#6 <) is just a ‘one night’s’ job.

In an excellent OP-Ed in the Tribune newspaper of 16 September, 2007, headlined, ‘Linking Hansi-Bhutana canal with Bhakra canal’, Sirdar G. S. Dhillon, former Chief Engineer (Research) and Director, Irrigation and Power, Punjab, has given a wakeup call with cold facts, without being emotional or legalistic to the people of Punjab, about the danger to the Punjab by the illegal Hansi Bhutana canal (>   http://www.tribuneindia.com/2007/20070916/edit.htm#6 <) built by Haryana. In a strange and intriguing coincidence a report headlined, “Bhakra Mainline Canal closure - Ban to check water misuse” was also published in the same newspaper, Tribune, on the same date – 16 September, 2007 - about the unprecedented closure of the Bhakra Mainline Canal with effect from 10 October 2007. (>  http://www.tribuneindia.com/2007/20070916/cth1.htm#11  <) This action by the Bhakra Beas Management Board obviously anticipates a verdict favoring Haryana by the Indian Supreme Court which is hearing various cases on the Punjab river waters issue and the illegal Hansi-Bhutana Canal, constructed by Haryana. Some chutzpah! (See Khalistan Calling of 12 September, 2007, headlined, “Is the biased Indian Supreme Court about  to ambush the Punjab government on river water disputes and settle all of them in favor of Haryana and Rajasthan? Wake Up Punjab,” by clicking at: >  http://khalistan-affairs.org/home/khalistancalling/2007/september12.aspx  <)

Irrigation Engineer Sirdar G. S. Dhillon in his September 16 Op-Ed in Tribune has observed that, “The hurried manner in which the builders of the Hansi-Bhutana Canal constructed the 110-km-long canal at a cost of Rs 390 crore and now trying to connect it to the Bhakra Main Line Canal near RD 340, raises many questions about the problems likely to arise. The Hansi –Bhutana water is just 15 feet away from the Bhakra canal waterline. The only hurdle for water to flow into it is the 15-feet-wide bank of the Bhakra Main Line Canal. The contractor building the new canal says that it is now just a one-night job. The HB canal builders say that if they successfully connect the old canal with double title lining, it will be a great achievement. Thus, there is need to examine the problems which may arise so that the builders exercise due caution.”

Retired Irrigation Engineer G. S. Dhillon goes on to say in his Tribune Op-ED that, “The Bhakra Main Line Canal at the site of the proposed connection, i.e. RD 340,000 ft, carries some 6,795 cusecs water at full supply. Being a canal fed from the Nangal Dam, the variation in the discharge is not much. Normally, if a connection were to made available in regular mode, we would have to build a cross regulator with full control with gated system and a side regulator also equipped with gated control. But as the HB builders cannot wait for that, they have built an off-taking lined canal with three gates control. Through the new canal 2000 cusecs, about 30 per cent of the total Bhakra Mainline Canal capacity is to be taken away. The regulation of the irrigation flows in the BML canal is carried by the Punjab Irrigation Department (which is considered a hostile agency by the Hansi-Bhutana canal builders). The water sharing is to be done for Punjab’s off-taking canals and to pass down Rajasthan’s share and Haryana’s share of 4,000 cusecs. At present, this fine-tuned regulation is affected through the cross regulator located at RD 466,000 ft. This mode would not be able to control the flow into the new off-taking canal, located 8 km lower down. It would trigger inter-state water sharing dispute among the three states. The new regulator on the off-taking HB canal would be under the control of the Haryana Irrigation Department. So the problem would get more complicated.”

The Op-Ed concludes with a touching prayer which reads, “May God save the BML from any damage in the ongoing construction as it is the lifeline of Punjab, Haryana and Rajasthan farmers,” after pointing out that, “The off-taking weir interface between the Bhakra Mainline and the Hansi-Bhutana canals should work in the most complex hydraulic conditions due to the configuration and relative locations of the two canals. It would have to operate in a near head-loss state with the head dropping from the upstream end to the downstream and of being a broad-crested shape. The design should be subjected to rigorous model testing before being adopted and implemented. Normally, when a canal of the size of the Hansi-Bhutana canal is to be filled, the mode adopted is slow release of water into the new canal, which is gradually raised to full volume so that the leakage or seepage noticed at any location is stopped by carefully laid-out procedures. But will the builders of the HB canal, who are in a hurry and working in stealthy manner, mostly at night, be able to commission the 110-km-long system with many drainage crossings, without any difficulty?” End quote.

Every Punjabi should make note of the strange coincidence, nay Chanakiyan intrigue, in the 16 September report in the Tribune newspaper   (>  http://www.tribuneindia.com/2007/20070916/cth1.htm#11  <) which is innocently headlined, “Bhakra Mainline Canal closure - Ban to check water misuse” about the unprecedented closure of the Bhakra Mainline Canal with effect from 10 October 2007. The tribune report, from its unnamed Mohali correspondent, about the closure of the huge Bhakra Mainline Canal, which carries 6, 796 cusecs of water and supplies 72% of Mohali’s water requirement, is being closed for two weeks for repairs as if there has been an accident necessitating the expensive and cumbersome exercise of reopening 55 discarded tube-wells which would be made functional for people living in Mohali who will face water shortage etc., etc. ‘Three flying squad teams have been constituted to check the misuse of water and these have been authorised to take action in case of violations. Water usage would also be checked at common stand posts, general toilets and government institutions.’ The Bhakra Mainline Canal is being closed for other than the stated reasons and is part of the conspiracy against Punjab hatched between the Bhakra Beas Management Board (BBMB), the state of Haryana, some crooked Hindu judges of the Indian Supreme Court and the concerned Central ministry in Delhi. It is obvious that this drama is being played out to facilitate, what Engineer G. S. Dhillon has described as, “the off-taking weir interface between the Bhakra Mainline and the Hansi-Bhutana canals’is a complex operation.” It is also obvious that the crooked Indian Supreme Court has given a ‘wink and a nod’ and Haryana has been assured that Punjab’s applications about its water disputes are going to be rejected. The old adage very much applies here that, “People always overdo the matter when they attempt deception”.

Some very valid questions come to mind. When will the Punjabis whose future generation will suffer over water (and their homeland will become a desert) wake up to this conspiracy between Hindu-majority non-rirparian state of Haryana, Hindutva engineers of the BBMB, and some anti-Sikh Hindutva judges of India’s Supreme ‘Kangaroo’ Court, also known as the Indian Supreme Court who have given a ‘wink and a nod’ to encourage Haryana to go ahead with its dirty deed? When will Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal wake up and give a lead to muster the farmers of Punjab to counter this great threat (with counter measures like breaching the Bhakra Mainline and other canals passing through Punjab territory a la Haryana) to replenish the ground water as out of Punjab’s 137 blocks only 25 are safe and 112 are over-exploited according to the latest Planning Commission report, ‘Groundwater management and Ownership’? Maybe Punjabis ought to sit down and recollect the methods used so successfully some years ago to stop the Sutlej Yumna Link (SYL) canal? Last but not the least another question come to mind. Why is former Chief minister Captain Amrinder Singh, who so gallantly and shrewdly – to his eternal credit - piloted the unanimous passage of  ‘The Punjab Termination of Agreements ACT -2004' in the Punjab Assembly on 12 July 2004’ silent about this conspiracy between the State of Haryana, some bigoted officials of the Bhakra Beas Management Board (BBMB) and some corrupt judges of the Indian Supreme Court?